Buildings in Antarctica: How Tecno Fast designed two scientific centers located in the southernmost part of the world

2 August, 2022

• Tecno Fast developed this capsule of 5.81 square meters that you can buy or lease and that takes only 4 hours to be installed in your yard. In addition to an office, the space serves as an art studio, yoga room or study.

Can you imagine what it must be like to live in Antarctica, away from all the comforts of civilization and permanently enduring low temperatures? That was the challenge that the Tecno Fast team had to solve after the company was awarded the tender by the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) to design two new scientific centers on the white continent.

The spaces will be located at the Yelcho and Teniente Luis Carvajal Bases and will consist of two-story buildings that will be on a metallic structure and that will have the necessary equipment so that the researchers can live and carry out their analyzes.

Each building will have 4,000 square meters distributed in about 150 maritime-sized modules (similar to cargo containers) and include laboratories, bedrooms, dining rooms, bathrooms and recreation rooms.

“This project represents a technological challenge, because these bases are very modern and world-class, and also an environmental challenge, because all the waste generated by the construction must be transported back to continental Chile,” said Mario Yáñez, engineering manager by Techno Fast.

Regarding extreme temperatures, Yáñez explained that “we already have experience in this matter, because in 2012 we had to set up a camp in Maricunga (high mountain range of Copiapó), where the thermometer has reached -37°C. In the case of Antarctica, the usual temperature is -25°C”.

The executive specified that “we have the technology and the capacity to develop constructions with high-standard thermal insulation so that people can live and work without problems.”

Throughout 2021, the company carried out the basic studies and detailed engineering for both buildings, which have the particularity that they will work throughout the year. Until now, scientific campaigns are carried out only during the summer.

Soon, the tender will be held to develop the construction, a process in which Tecno Fast will also participate.